13. The Mercury Sphygmomanometer
Before the invention of the sphygmograph in by Étienne Jules Marey in 1860, taking a patient’s blood pressure was a rather stabby affair, because it required the puncturing of an artery. It was a while before researchers developed the sphygmomanometer we recognize today. The sphygmograph detected blood pressure by discovering the weight at which the radial pulse grew silent. Then Italian internist and pediatrician Scipioni Riva-Rocci discovered that adding mercury to a glass tube made it easier to measure blood pressure. But obtaining and keeping the blood pressure uniform against the patient’s artery was challenging.
Then in the mid-1890s, he developed the inflatable cuff most of us are familiar with today. This new sphygmomanometer incorporated the cuff, which quieted the brachial artery, and the mercury tube. But the sphygmomanometer could only read the systolic blood pressure (which measures the pressure in blood vessels when the heart is beating) and not the diastolic (which measures the pressure between beats.) Then in 1905, Russian surgeon Nikolai Korotkoff came up with the stethoscope, allowing the diastolic portion to be read. Now you know who to thank the next time a technician takes your blood pressure.
14. This Dental Phantom recalls the movie alien — before the movie was even written
This rather nightmarish device looks like it was designed by H.R. Giger for the movie “Alien,” but it was actually a tool that allowed doctors to learn and practice different techniques. It definitely looks intimidating and probably originated in the earlier part of the 1930s. Made of aluminum, the model above was likely covered by a rubber head, now lost to eternity. Older versions didn’t have the “Robocop” look that the model above has. But there is something extra creepy about dental phantoms: Many versions use human teeth pulled from corpses.
Despite its creepiness, modern iterations of this device, invented by Edward Oswald Fergus in 1894, are used widely today, especially by students learning dental techniques. Fergus, born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1861, earned a Licentiate in Dental Surgery of the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons in 1884. After working as an assistant dental surgeon at the Glasgow Dental Hospital and School, he traveled to the U.S. and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a Doctor of Dental Surgery in 1892. Back in Glasgow, he began practicing dentistry again. The phantom is now a critical component of dental training worldwide.